Tag: ireland

[…] In order to understand the
dynamics of reggae, however, a clear understanding of Rastafari must be
grasped. Reggae is an auditory representation of the experience of
Rastafari which is based on the mystical union of the human and the
divine. Rastafari, like many syncretized religions of the African
diaspora seeks a unity (inity) of the personal, social, and intrapersonal aspects of being. This inity is expressed in the concept of InI,
which depending on the context, could refer to the individual, the
community, or divinity located in the personage of His Imperial
Majesty, Haile Selassie I, Jah Ras Tafari. Everything begins and ends
with InI.
As Dawes explains, “Rastafarianism represents a fundamental break with
traditional and conventional Judaeo-Christianity. It redefines the
meaning of deity and recasts the figure of God in terms that are
antithetical to colonial representations of the Christian godhead. By
establishing a god in Haile Selassie, Rastafarianism breaks away from
the patterns of conventional Christianity that operate in Jamaica and
brings into being a new and very elaborate series of modern myths”
(98). Rastafari’s insistence on the validity of individual experience,
the indwelling god, “I,” whose union with the ever living God, “I”,
provided an intellectual and experiential basis
to its claims. There was no difference between “I” and “I”. The
Cartesian mind/body split and the “I” and “Thou” of Buber were
obliterated. As Dawes further states, “This lends to reggae a defiant
but complex mythology and offers the reggae influenced artist an
approach to art that allows for a dialogue between the political and
the spiritual. Essentially, this quality in reggae defies much of the
binarism that characterises much of western discourse” (99). In other
words, the legitimacy of a reggae influenced artist’s work would be based on her depiction of the experiences of the landscape, peoples, religions and cultures of the Caribbean or Plantation America […]